Monday, October 16, 2017

All in the timing

Artnews reports that dealer Gary Nader will sell $100 million worth of works from his collection in order to fund a proposed museum in Florida to house said collection.

I assume no one could have a problem with this. It's his work, and if that's what it takes to get the museum built, great.

But if he first donated the work to the museum ... and the museum sold the works to, say, raise money for construction of the building ... then the sale would suddenly become unethical and the Deaccession Police would be on to their usual carping.

But the end result is identical in the two cases. How can one be totally noncontroversial and the other deeply unethical?